Better to Die a Hero (25 page)

“You’re right of course,” Steve said, kneeling beside her. “Let’s see how your hair is doing.”

Nora flipped back her hair and exposed the bald spot. “It’s not smooth anymore. I can feel hair coming in.”

“Your hair is growing back in,” he said, examining her scalp. The quarter inch hairs were grey, but he didn’t mention it. Maybe they would darken in time. He breathed in her sweet aroma and leaned in to kiss her cheek.

“No,” Nora said, pulling her face away.

Steve attempted a second kiss.

“No I really mean it.” She pushed him away and moved off the chair.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, “I guess this is not the time, given the circumstances.”

“It’s not that,” she said, walking to the other side of the room, her arms held tight across her chest.

“Believe me, I understand. We’re both stressed out.”

“I wish it was that easy.” Her arms came in tighter and she squeezed her legs together as if she was trying to disappear behind a pole. “I really haven’t wanted to do anything since I stopped taking the powder, any kissing or anything sexual.”

“I think that’s perfectly normal,” Steve said, “The powder was making you sick. It could take a while for you to come back to normal.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, “I am back to normal.”
             
Steve eyes widened and he was sick to his stomach. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, I was going to stay a virgin till I got married.”

“I see, the powder made you do it,” Steve said, “or made you do me, actually.”

“I’m leaving.” She stomped out of the room.

“Yeah, you dress like you were going to stay a virgin!” he yelled.

The girl whirled around and her hair slapped her face. “I’m telling my parents everything tomorrow.” She turned and ran down the stairs.

“Oh, crap.” He stared up at the ceiling regretting every word he had said. He loved her more than he had loved anyone. He loved her so much it was unbearably painful and blissful at the same time.

His chin dropped to his chest and he sat staring at the crate of antiques, wishing his father had never existed.

*          *          *

“Weekend warriors!” Troll yelled, slamming his back against a tall air conditioning unit. He held the tar bucket up and vampire dust drained from several bullet holes. Like the rhythm of exploding popcorn, machine gun fire rang out and bullets punched through the sheet metal completing the dangerous melody. Troll dropped the bucket and jumped high. The bucket gyrated to the impact of more bullets and monster dust bellowed into the air.

Troll looked down at the three soldiers from fifty feet in the night sky. This leap high into the air was now his favorite move. His foes never expected an attack from above and if they did manage to look up they’d never see him. At night, he owned the inky sky above the rooftops. He held the bottom of his coat tight and started to descend. The coat normally flapped like a cape and he loved that, but not when the fluttering material could give away the direction of attack.

The three soldiers with machine guns drawn to shoulders, henchmen of the vampire Savini he was sure, skirted the riddled unit. Troll came down and sunk his elbows into the spines of two soldiers sending them sprawling. A powerful backhand landed across the face of the third knocking him off the building.

“Crap.” Troll pulled a tooth out of the back of his hand. Two more teeth lay deep in his flesh. He dug in, plucked out a second tooth, and held it up for examination. He tossed it and dug out the remaining tooth.

“Double crap.” The bucket lay tipped, nearly shredded, and vampire dust swirled in the night breeze. Troll squatted into the twirling debris, grabbed the last couple of handfuls remaining in the bucket, and deposited the ash into his coat pocket. His fingers brushed something hard and oddly shaped within. It was a whisky flask from his father’s collection—one of the best pieces.

He had forgotten to take a dose today; in fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d ingested a pinch. He checked the flask contents and found it empty. He heaved the flask off the building; its flat shape helped it sail far. He placed a pinch of vampire dust under his tongue. If anything qualified to substitute for the power, it was vampire remains.

The sound of soldiers falling out onto the rooftop alerted him. Savini had deployed men throughout the city. He and the authorities had obviously under estimated the recourses of the vampire mob boss. The Don’s Special Ops team numbered in the thousands and though he wanted to stay and inflict casualties, he had other pressing business to attend. He dove over the closest ledge headfirst. He performed a perfect swan dive down forty stories, his long coat flapping just perfect, and he concentrated hard trying to remember the way to Nora’s house.

*          *          *

Nora kicked out the bottom of her bed covers then tossed to one side and then the other. She punched her pillow twice and laid down her head. Her younger sister moaned. Frustration fired Nora’s body and her leg twitched and she fought the urge to slam a fist into the wall. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She pretended she was at a gymnastics competition and the tension was the nervous butterflies common before hitting the mat—a kind of stage fright. She wiggled her fingers and toes and shook it out as if she were standing beside her teammates.

She scrutinize the people sitting in the bleachers, pictured them naked, and the tension drained. Steve sat a few rows from the first. She imagined him at his previous weight, fully clothed, a big teddy bear, sipping on a large drink from the concession stand, surrounded by the naked crowd.

She remembered their argument and cringed. If the powder had affected her hormones and caused her to want sex, it wasn’t Steve’s fault. She initiated the tea ceremony. It was just supposed to be rhino horn. She never really believed in the health benefits her grandfather toted and she added aphrodisiac on her own to get the boys to drink. It was supposed to be a harmless ritual meant to bond the three of them.

Certainly the three of them were now connected, linked together in a horror story, but not for long. Soon Bryan would be dead and it would be her fault. Steve hadn’t yet realized she was to blame, but when his friend’s life ended, he would come to understand who was at fault. Maybe that is why she was pushing him away, to beat him to the punch.

A wave of anxiety rolled down her chest and her jaw cramped below both ears. She held back a whimper and massaged the knotted muscles. The pain subsided and she stretched her mouth yawningly. She inhaled and imagined herself mounting the uneven parallel bars.

A double tap on the bedroom window interrupted a full-twisting release. Nora opened her eyes and she peed herself a little. Bryan peered in, bald with bumps running its brow, cheeks and chin. It was as Steve described, barely a trace of their comical friend remained.

Nora sat petrified as he slid the window open. He crawled inside moving more feline than human. He crouched on the floor and in one silent move, a move as smooth as flowing water, sat on the foot of Nora’s bed.

“Hey, Nora,” the giant figure said. The streetlight coming in through the window illuminated a bodybuilder torso and thighs as big as her waste. The stench of human feces filled the room.

“Hi, Bryan,” she said.

“That boy friend of yours is sure being an asshole.”

“Shhhhh,” Nora said putting a finger to her lips, “you’re going to wake up my parents and get me in trouble.”

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I need a favor from you. Hold out your hands.”
             
Her heart thumped.

“No, cup them together and quit shaking.” He dripped a heavy ash into her hands. “Hold still, you’re going to lose it all. Guess what this is?”

“I don’t know?”

“Vampire dust.”

“Really,” she said, unable to look at his face.

“I dusted me a few vampires. I was going to bring you a bucket of the stuff and then some army men shot up my bucket. What’s wrong with you?”

“N... noth… nothing,” she said, “You don’t look like you used to.”

“I’m in costume.” He pointed to the dust in her hands. “I’m counting on you to analyze that ash for me. I’ve decided not to go to college for a couple years.”

Nora’s little sister stirred. “Nora, do you have a boy in the room?”

“Go back to sleep,” she whispered.

Troll’s serpentine exit was as quiet as his entrance
.
Nora crawled out of bed careful not to spill the ash and walked to the open window
.
She looked for Bryan then dropped the ash outside and wiped her hands
.
His smell lingered
so
she left the window open and changed into fresh pajamas
.
In the
morning
, she
would
tell her parents the monster terrorizing Manhattan, killing innocent
people
, had
been
in her
room
with her sisters
.
First, she
would
go her Grandfather and then the two of them
would
go to her parents.

CHAPTER 20

S
teve sat at his desk wondering what the phone call would be like. Probably a detective asking him and his uncle to come down to the precinct, or maybe it would be Nora’s parents on the line. Uncle George had guessed the former. The old man had laid out his best suit and cleaned the dust off his portable oxygen. If the authorities believed Nora, they might skip the call and send a car to the house. However it played out, eventually Bryan’s parents would be brought in. Dr. Sahbiny, charming in public and belligerent in private, would be put to the test.

“Screw that guy,” Steve said aloud.

He didn’t give a rat’s ass how that bastard would react. He did worry about Mrs. Sahbiny and tried to imagine the look on her face, the look when his eyes met hers, but he could not. He probably wouldn’t have the guts to look her square in the face anyway. He would probably behave like a coward, staring down at his feet, much like he now stared at the phone.

In the distance, the front door to the house slammed jarring him from his all-encompassing daze. Nora shouted out an apology to George for not knocking. She bounded like a brute up the stairs and burst through the bedroom door.

“Don’t get up, just sit there,” she ordered. She grabbed the arm of the office chair and rolled Steve away from the desk. Giggling, she swooped behind him, bended at the knees and snatched the chair and Steve into the air. Laughing she twirled several times.

Nausea grew in Steve’s stomach as the room spun. “Let me down,” he pleaded. Nora put him down and spun the chair so that the he was facing her. She planted a kiss on his lips and gave the chair a shove toward the desk.

“Yeah.” Steve crashed into the desk. Papers and pens flew everywhere.

“Oops, I didn’t mean to push you that hard.”

“You never did know your own strength,” he said, standing and straightening his shirt. “What the heck is happening?”

“My Grandfather,” she said, sending several fast punches and a kick into the air. “He pinched some of the powder when he first ground it.” Her smile went from ear to ear.

“I can tell that he did.”

Nora took a silk patch tied with a string from her pocket and handed it to him.

He placed the patch on the desk, pulled the string and spread the silk. “There’s at least six doses here maybe more.”

“What do you think,” she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“I don’t know what to think. This means I can go after Bry—.”

“No, no,” Nora said, “we can both go after Bryan.”
             
“Not a chance.” Steve waved a finger in the air. “That is not going to happen.”

“Yes it is going to happen.” Her brow furrowed. “I’m going after him tonight.”

“Guess what, you’ll never find him.” He almost stuck his tongue out.

“You think so? Well guess who paid a visit to my room last night? A big troll smelling of shit, bald head, wearing nothing but your coat, bumps here, here and here.” Nora ran her finger across her face showing the correct locations. “He had a hand full of soot especially for me. Vampire something or another that I’m supposed to analyze for him.”

“He’s delusional. Did he hurt anyone?”

“Not this time, but guess what? I felt his presence and location just the same as you. I can find him on my own.”

“You can’t do this. Nora you don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“Steve, don’t you see how perfect this is?” she said. “You weren’t able to bring him in alone and all the powder was gone. I go to my grandfather to ask for advice and, blam, enough powder for both of us. This is my chance to redeem myself. This was meant to be.”